President's Blog - David Starck

Reflecting on 2024, looking toward 2025

We live in a world of “OK what’s next?”  While it is easy (and exciting) to quickly turn the calendar to 2025, I feel it is important to take a moment and reflect on what was an action-packed 2024 in the lightning Class.

There were many “success stories” throughout the class in 2024, reaching Europe, South America, and here in North America. At the risk of missing a few, here is a partial list:

Amazing ILCA Boat Grant team(s) success stories North America

Lightning lab Clinics All Regions

Southern Circuit Florida USA

LOYALS (Legions of Young At-Heart Avid Lightning Sailors)

Inaugural U32 Invitational Regatta Canada

Boat shipment to Finland

Youth World Championship in Chile

European and Finnish Championship Finland

South American Championship Ecuador

ILCA Social Media promotion and awareness All Regions

WJM North American Championships Canada

North American Championship Canada

Classic Woodie Lightning Regatta Keuka, NY USA

Canadian Open Championship Canada

As we set our sights on 2025, there is SO MUCH to look forward to racing Lightnings throughout North America, South America, and Europe.  Whether it is competing in 3 (YES 3!) Helly Hansen Sailing World Championships in St. Pete, Annapolis or Marblehead; the European/Master/World Championships in Greece, WJM NAs in Larchmont NY, 2^nd Annual U32 Invitational, South American Championship in Chile, North American Championship at Wrightsville Beach, or the several local and regional regattas in your area, let’s make Lightning sailing in 2025 The Best Ever! The time is now to map out your Lightning sailing plans for next year. Let’s Do This!! Go To https://www.lightningclass.org/ and check out Upcoming Events here.

From my family to yours, have a Merry Christmas and wonder holiday season.

LOYALS Update – a great way to give back to the Class in ways uniquely suited to your individual strengths and interests! 

In the last FlashBlast (11/11/24) we introduced the LOYALS - a Legion Of Young-at-heart Avid Lightning Sailors. Quick refresher: We welcome anyone with a little time to volunteer for a variety of projects ranging from simple to complex. Our objectives are to strengthen the Class, increase participation, work on projects prioritized by the Executive Committee and engage volunteers to proactively propose new ideas. 

So what have we been up to so far? Here’s some numbers:

• 88: We contacted all 88 U.S. fleet captains and updated their contact info as needed
• 1^st: We launched the first forum on the Lightning Class website – think of it as targeted social media – for District Commodores and Fleet Captains. There are five conversation threads so far, including how to optimize fleet communication and the new Racing Rules of Sailing. 
• 22: We’re reaching out to newly-expired members – 22 so far – to encourage them to renew their membership, or understand why not and what we can do to add more value

Projects currently under development and looking for volunteers:

• Improve members’ ability to find the many rich resources that reside on the Class website. We’ll start with identifying a process to “chunk out” digestible pieces of the website to then reorganize/refine as necessary
• Document our many perpetual trophies - at both the Class and District level – and the winners throughout the years (Clarke Newman, project lead)
• Establish a Fundraising Committee to help ensure the long-term health of our Class and its key initiatives, such as the Boat Grant program, the Limbaugh education fund, etc. 
• Establish an Advertising Committee to help define advertising and sponsorship opportunities and rates
• Create a standard set of reports for Class website stats – which will in turn help us the Advertising Committee noted above

As you can see, there’s a lot going on, and a lot of opportunities to support this vibrant Class of ours! There’s something for everyone – whether you have just an hour a month to volunteer, or are interested in a longer-term project. If you’re interested in joining our volunteer group, working on one of these projects, or you have questions or ideas, you can email us at loyals@lightningclass.org or lightning-loyals@googlegroups.com, or call Bertie Werley (412-439-4543). We welcome helpers at any level!  

That list includes all District Championships, all Area Championships (North American, South American, European, African, and Australian—including the WJM’s), The World Championships, the Circuit Championships, and other Sanctioned events, like the Canadian Open and the ACC’s.

Second, we ask that the current holder to send me a nice photograph of each trophy.  Third, we would like the current holder to send a list of the previous winners listed by year.  One could send a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet with this information.

Finally, if there is any unique history that appertains to a specific trophy, like the story behind who gave the trophy, or like how the NA’s Third Place Trophy got so mangled, then make sure we hear that story, too.

On behalf of the ILCA LOYALS Project Team, I thank you in advance for helping with this project.